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Jan 22, 2012

For one reason or another, my partner and I put on hold our efforts to go through all seasons of Will & Grace, hence the significant delay between the posting of this review and the prior season. But we're finally back on this particular horse less than a year later, and thus the zaniness continues on.

It's interesting how one can just take up the show at almost any point in his history and still be highly amused by the humor. The show still doesn't feel all too dated except for a few odd references here and there, and that says a lot about the strength of the writing involved in the project. And it's hard to think of the characters as anyone but the roles they fulfilled in this epic LGBT series.

I have to admit this season was a little weird for me. Sure, I still laughed at a lot of the jokes and side plots and there were a number of interesting twists to be certain. But overall it still felt somewhat weaker than past seasons, maybe because of some of the constraints imposed by Debra Messing's pregnancy or who else knows what.

While still a great show, this felt like a bit of a miss. Or maybe just a hiccup.

Will & Grace is a NBC comedy created by David Kohan and Max Mutchnick and ran for eight seasons. The show won many awards during its 8-season run including 16 Emmy awards (although no Golden Globes).

The season kicked off with the new status quo - Grace (Debra Messing) now being married to Dr. Leo Markus (Harry Connick, Jr.). And as if it wasn't complicated enough for any guy to just date Grace and deal with her eternal attachment to Will (Eric McCormack), what more marriage, right? But we had to throw in the fact that Leo gets involved in Doctors Without Borders, thus he remains a recurring star and not part of the regular cast.

This season was a little quirky in the sense that we spent very little time in Will's office, which seemed like such a highlight last season. Apart from the tail end involvement of Stuart (Dave Foley). We did spend quite a bit of time on the whole Karen (Megan Mullally) and Lorraine Finster (Minnie Driver) rivalry, which I admit was pretty amusing even before her father Lyle (John Cleese) entered the picture.

One could argue that Jack (Sean Hayes) probably had the most interesting plot line given his ever-shifting careers during this season. We saw him teach an acting class even for the likes of James Earl Jones, finish as some sort of a nurse, become a back-up dancer for both Jennifer Lopez and Janet Jackson and still end up wanting to become an actor. And the season had it's more than generous list of guest starts beyond the folks already mentioned like Barry Manilow, Geena Davis, Candace Bergen and Jack Black. I'll not get into too much detail in terms of what they contributed to the show, but overall it was pretty good.

I can't quite place my finger on what was truly missing from this season, and this goes beyond the writers finding the lamest reasons for Debra Messing not to be shown on air due to her pregnancy. Maybe the jokes are just getting old or the dysfunctional nature of Will & Grace's extreme friendship despite everything else is getting to me. The only thing that helps keep the show pretty kickass would have to be Jack and Karen for sure - their comedic insanity always makes sense and always brings the show forward into interesting directions. And that's something to count on, to be certain.

Will & Grace: Season 6 is still a good run and an important part of any gay man's DVD library. The season still merits 3.5 instances of Jack and Karen enjoying a drink or too at his "cafe" out of a possible 5.